I'm a transgender girl happily on a journey to looking better, being more feminized and overcoming adversity. Whether in your teens or way beyond, if you’re a transgender girl, this is for you. Like an embassy in a hostile land, this is the place to gain strength, to get empowering information and to belong. I made this place based on what I've learned; I hope it helps you. Welcome home.

Monthly Archives: February 2015

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There used to be a general controversy as to whether being gay was a choice or not. A gay friend of mine explained to me how difficult his life has been due to being gay, and if he had a choice, he’d have had a much safer and more pleasant life had he chosen to be straight. That’s no reflection on the relative merits of being gay or straight but it IS a negative reflection on the mean people, homophobes mostly, who harass gay people.

This sort of parallels my own situation. I’m straight to at least some extent, and I’m not very happy about it. As I grew up, I tried to understand male culture and males in general. I failed. Some of my best friends are male and after years of trying to understand, I probably by now understand male culture better than most females do, but it’s something I can at best understand mathematically. I can’t relate, at all. In a way that’s good because that helped me realize I’m female, brain-wise, not male. But it definitely makes it a chore to go spend social time with a male unless he’s one of my two dozen wonderful male friends. Going to bed with any of my male friends is a bad idea even if I were attracted as such, so that limits the pool of beddable males to … non-friends. This means that I need to socialize with male strangers in order to have the sort of sex life that, whether I like it or not, is what my brain is wired for.

I suspect that the lives of many females might be a lot more easy, safe and pleasant if they weren’t attracted to males. Mine certainly would be.

I’ve tried to deny that part of my sexuality and focus on the other aspect of that. See, I’m also part-way gay. I’m a female who’s sexually attracted to females too. And if that were my entire sexual focus, my life would be a lot better. But, that’s not the reality of it and I’ve had to make peace with that.

As a t-girl, socializing with a new guy tends to be awkward for me. I almost want to fast-forward the events to the bedroom. On the rare occasions when I do escorting, that’s how I like to manage things and normally there are few objections. But, escorting has issues so I don’t do that all that often.

To make a mark on the calendar when I last experienced male company in bed, you’d have to go back to last summer. That’s a long time ago.

So, for a girl with this sort of mind-set, the lure of the X-rated movie business might be tempting. Some lovely ladies who can venture out in broad daylight and function in polite company have made very sexy movies. I adore Sharon Stone and her “Basic Instinct” movie, for example, was … you see what I mean. And yet she’s generally considered mainstream and she’s appropriately respected and even revered. Nicole Kidman in “Eyes Wide Shut,” similar story. Not that these were X-rated porn movies but still, wow, they didn’t leave a lot to the imagination. Not that I’m complaining; I’m just saying. Wow, now it’s hard to focus. Where was I?

Oh, yes. The pros and cons of starring in a sexy movie. On the plus side, the person who’d be in bed with me would be hand-picked, handsome, virile and hot. Someone else would (if I pick the right studio) make sure a condom is used. Plus I wouldn’t have to first sit in a bar and make idle chit-chat. And someone would even provide the location. Bonus, I’d get my make-up done for me. When you think about it like that, wow, it’s hard to fault. And then many people will be watching. Personally, that’s more of an aphrodisiac to me than not. What could be better than having all these problems solved for me? Oh wait, they’re all really skilled at this?! Wow, they’re professionals at it? That’s wonderful. I wonder how much I’d have to pay them for all their hard work. And then the shocking news: wait, they would pay ME? Wow, if I’m dreaming, please don’t wake me up now.

And, supposedly some stars make A LOT of money, during the movie and then what they can charge for escorting later.

So, I seriously looked into it. I personally even went so far as to get the name of the most likely agent in Southern California to go see, and how best to approach him. I mean, I REALLY looked into it. And now that I know more and have thought about it more, I decided not to do so.

Price is set by supply and demand, and there’s high demand but it’s also a revenue plan for many t-girls. Until she’s well-known then $1,000 a day tends to be where the revenue tops out and there’s not enough demand for the same person over and over again to get such work every day or even close. No studio is going to publish 365 movies of the same t-girl even if she’s insanely hot.

A star like Kimber James etc. gets to charge way more but even 365 movies per year of her would flood the market. And to work up to her level takes a lot of time, dedication and calendar time. Also, probably some luck.

And then there’s the classic Hollywood run-around sleazy factor. I’ve worked in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California (the porn movie center of the universe) long enough to see it up close, and that was not even doing any sort of entertainment-related work. There are many unethical people in that area to where dishonesty and cynicism are part of the general cultural mainstream there. I’ve read about how one studio tricked a new actress into showing up for a shoot and initially telling her it would be a safe-sex shoot but once she got there, it dawned on her that it’s not. When she objected she was ridiculed and pressured. She chose to give in. That’s how the lady who wrote the article ended up with HIV.

I like Tara Lyn Foxx, who used to start in such movies, and I’ve been reading her blog posts, and although she tends to be sweet and kind, what she writes is enough to make me conclude that this is not a road I’d want to travel on, ever. So now I feel like I can make an informed decision when I say “no, thank you.”

My concerns are not just based on what happens on the movie set. Being a porn star might be a plus on some resumes but on many social and professional resumes, it’s really not. And the fun might last for a few hours but the resume implications would span decades.

Cooking is one of the skills I enjoyed learning at a way, way early age but being a t-girl in stealth mode I did so mainly surreptitiously. Even though I didn’t at the time understand my feminine inclinations well, I did correctly evaluate them as something the outside world would use to harm me so I trusted no-one as to that aspect of my mental process. My parents didn’t know, my friends didn’t know — nobody.

It’s really easy to keep a secret. You just don’t tell anyone.

So, now that I’m an adult and totally “out,” I enjoy cooking. Problem is that what I eat I plan very precisely — and what I eat rarely needs to be prepared aside from sticking a bowl of something in the microwave oven. The closest I typically come to cooking is on rare days when I make an omelet.

The reason I manage what I eat so carefully is that many t-girls look overly masculine due to their bulk, and even if this isn’t a fat tummy, but arms, chest, etc. then it’s still not a feminine shape.

The doctor who performed my Adam’s apple surgery, Dr. Ousterhout, is ultra-savvy about such matters, and to my immense gratitude, he advised me accordingly.

To see what I mean, go Google pictures of the lovely Kate Upton. She has large and lovely boobs but what makes her figure so extra sexy is that the rest of her figure is lean.

So, I am now indeed very gradually losing weight. As a conscious effort; this is new. I’m now at about 180 and have been this weight for a year or so. But now I’m ready to shrink. By the time I’m where I wanna be, I’ll be 160 or 155. Most of those 20 or 25 lost pounds will be fat and some will be due to muscle loss. I’m 5’11.5″ so that’s a pretty lean weight.

I take in about 1750 calories a day, which is about 750 less than what I need to maintain. To keep my metabolism fast enough I mainly drink coffee, sleep enough and drink lots of water. I exercise too but not to the extent that it deserves honorable mention.

If a deficit of 3,500 calories means a body weight loss of one pound, then I’ll lose a pound every 5 days or so, which is not so fast as to be unsafe. And there’s some wiggle room too, with a 750-calories-a-day deficit. For example, when I occasionally go to my mom’s for dinner or to the International House of Pancakes for an omelet, or I eat an extra square of chocolate, then I don’t stress about those extra calories; even so I’m not too worried.

The beauty of the plan is that the time to lose weight is before I go on estrogen because after that, weight loss becomes more difficult. And if I’m lean when I go on estrogen and then when I do put on weight, whether it’s muscle or fat, then this will show up in a feminine paradigm so it’ll make me more female-shaped. Brilliant.

Anyway, this being a rainy Saturday morning, I decided that the smell of baking muffins would be a nice addition to my humble home, and I prepared to make some of my favorite brand of muffins. One packet normally makes six muffins, and they are delicious if I eat them that same day. They don’t do well if I refrigerate them. But since they’re ultra-yummy, eating six of them is not a problem.

Almost casually, I read the nutritional info on the side of the box, before I got started. 170 calories. That’s not bad. OMG wait that’s per muffin. So 6 x 170 is more than a thousand calories and even if these were magic muffins, they would not be worth a a thousand-calorie hit. Also, those 6 muffins would max out my daily allotment of saturated fat. Not good at all. So, good-bye, my formerly beloved muffins. There was no way to salvage the relationship so the picture here tells the story.

That’s a good analogy for life as a t-girl (or as anyone). If something or someone is detrimental to your big-picture happiness, and you can’t make it work, then the right thing to do is to say “good-bye” even if it’s sad and difficult.

About a year ago, I changed my name legally and also had my legal paperwork corrected as to my gender being female.

But, today, I got an email from someone way back in the past, sent to my old “male” email address and made out to my old name.

Perhaps my reply to him can be helpful to you as well, if you worry about how to reconcile a “female present” with a “male past.” I basically wrote:

“Hi,

Thank you for reaching out.

Since you interacted with me last, I’ve changed my name and email address. I’m one of the few strange people who was born with a mix of major gender attributes, and for the first few decades I tried to live as a male and that didn’t work out so well. Turns out the reason is that my brain is basically female. So now I changed all my paperwork, got some surgeries, etc.

My correct name is Aquitania Charbury though I go by Tanya. My email address is xxx@gmail.com. Please update your records.

I’m attaching a picture too so that you can put a face to the name.

Like being gay was not too long ago, being a t-girl used to be social poison and now it’s almost fashionable. Certainly in the Bay area the culture is more open-minded so I’m glad you’re there. I am normally in the Reno area but I’ve done much Bay area contracting.

Either way I’m an IT professional with lots of dev and DBA experience …”

… and from then on the email focuses on the technical aspects though later on I include a paragraph of …

“Though female and low-key I tend to be very principled and assertive in my own quiet way, and I prefer substance over politics so the best places to place me would be where the culture is basically nice or at least functional. Being female, I tend to do best in female-run environments and worst in environments where much of the dynamic is based on macho chest-beating. I realize that rules out maybe 95% of clients and maybe 80% of Bay area clients.”

I make complex custom database software for a living, and I just finished a new version for a client this morning. And I’m sleep-deprived and want to take a nap, but before my nap I wanted to wind down. I play online chess to do that.

I just played a game. I was doing really well, being careful and methodical, and then I decided to move my queen (the most powerful piece) and then decided “No, that’s not where I want to put it, I need to think up a better plan yet.” So, I intended to put it back where it was before, but I slipped and put it on the actual board, in a valid but very bad spot. It was an official move, and it counted, and there’s no do-over in chess, just like in real life. Dangit!!

So, from then it was all downhill in a predictable way, and I lost the game.

This was, to me, a good analogy for real life. One’s freedom and health are paramount, like the queen in a chess game. Lose that and things continue but in a much more limited way and you’re basically not in control and then things get worse and worse and overwhelming and then the end happens sooner and unpleasantly, with little glory.

Telling the universe “gosh, there was just this one huge mistake” isn’t much consolation.

I have a friend who is wonderful and thoughtful and deliberate and brilliant but she chose to do something that was illegal though totally within her rights, and for that activity she chose a date that ended up causing her major problems later on in life. Another friend who is less brilliant but certainly deserves better than she got, did several things in a combination, all of which were impressively illegal and yet she was totally within her rights, and by “rights” I mean basic human fundamental rights, not whatever the local law enforcement folks happen to consider to be someone’s rights. In fact, the local law enforcement folks are typically the largest violator of rights when it comes to people doing with their own bodies things that they have every human right to do, but right or wrong, if it violates some or other dumb law they might even so end up being arrested. This happened to my friend. The local law enforcement folks made her pay a five-figure fine and took away her car and freedom for a while. And until that one isolated incident her life was wonderful.

I’ve also exchanged emails with some people who were thoughtful and smart and yet had made just one mistake too many, and they ended up being HIV positive. One mistake is all it takes.

I mention this because for many t-girls, we live our sexual and social life repressed, and when we finally break free we’re so sexually and socially wild that we’re often not cautious enough. It’s sort of like someone escaping from where they’ve been wrongly imprisoned and then while crossing the main road they get run over. It’s sort of extra sad.

I’m all for being wild and free but doing so in a way that enables you to avoid looking back and saying “that was a big mistake, and I wish I could have a do-over.”

For example, the things I’ve done have inspired many to say “wow” but I did them while actively trying to manage the legality and safety issues. It’s sort of like driving faster than the legal speed limit. If your car is safe enough, and so is the road, and you’re a good enough driver and highly unlikely to get a fine, then I’m all for it.

One of my favorite blog websites is enthusiastically (and sexily) encouraging to transsexual girls. I love the website, with one major exception. The author tends to use the word “faggot” a lot.

In the US and UK, cultural opposition to homophobia has grown to where there’s often a knee-jerk negative reaction to that word being used anywhere, and though I think that’s an improvement over using that word as a derogatory term, the issue deserves more careful consideration. So, no, my issue isn’t with that word being used at all, because the lady who uses is does so in a well-intentioned context.

As an example of what I mean: in my favorite novel, Atlas Shrugged, there is a clash of cultures. One sub-culture works on the premise that earning money is good and noble, and the other sub-cultures oppose that concept. One of the heroes in the novel, Nr. Nulligan, is a banker who is very successful at earning money. He gets the nickname “Midas” because everything he touches turns to gold, as a figure of speech. By the standards of the anti-wealth sub-cultures, his success at earning money makes him exceptionally evil, so this nickname was intended as a slur. Mulligan fundamentally disagrees with these standards (as do I) and he takes the nickname as a compliment. He cheerfully explains that he carefully chooses what he touches, i.e., he chooses his investments rationally so the process is a lot less mystical and involves a lot more due diligence and hard work than is apparently to a clueless observer. He proceeds to have his name legally changed to Midas Mulligan, thus fundamentally rejecting the moral premise of his adversaries. What they irrationally consider to be shameful, is for him a source of pride — and he’s open about it.

I learned of another example today while reading up about the origins of the word “faggot” on Wikipedia. The article explains that someone’s car, presumably a gay lady, had “fag” spray-painted on it by homophobic vandals. The picture shown here is of her car after she had it repainted in a way that makes it clear she is unashamed of, and instead openly proud of being gay and living as such. She even named her car “The Fagbug” and “embarked on a trans-American road trip to raise awareness of homophobia and LGBT rights that was documented in a film of the same name.”

In the spring of 1765, the recently enacted Stamp Act was the prime topic of political conversation in the American colonies. In Virginia, [in] the current session of the House of Burgesses … Patrick Henry, who had held his seat for only a matter of days, celebrated his twenty-ninth birthday on May 29 by offering a series of resolutions related to the current crisis …

On May 30, Henry gave his maiden speech in the assembly and defended his resolutions. He expanded the scope of his criticism to include not only Parliament, but the king as well. Speaking of George III, he stated that, “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third — .” At that point he was interrupted by cries of “Treason!” from delegates who easily recognized the reference to assassinated leaders. Henry paused briefly, then calmly finished his sentence: “…may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.”

Back to the t-girl lady with the website. She uses the word “faggot” in the same spirit as the above examples, the VW Bug owner in particular. I’d paraphrase her point as: “If you’re a t-girl and you feel attracted to men and want to be sexual with them, there’s no moral issue whatsoever with being a faggot, so go be gay — proudly.”

I love her attitude. The problem I have is … with her logic.

Premise check: the now-obsolete definition of male is “someone with male-shaped body parts ‘down there.'” For lack of a better idea, that’s still used at birth. But, as a transsexual child develops, it becomes apparent that the child has a brain structure that’s the opposite of her officially assigned gender and so then it’s time to change things over, to correct the initial mis-categorization.

The brain-structure premise is the logical basis for someone being considered transsexual. But, until recently the basis for that logic was the science of psychology, and only recently that has been supported by medical science, as in: autopsies performed on girls who, while alive, claimed to be transsexual girls, and then the autopsies showed them to truly have had a female brain structure.

Anyway, there’s a certain mindset that considers the contents of one’s underwear to be basically more important that the contents of one’s head, and unsurprisingly, this mindset continues to classify people based on the shape of their visible body parts ‘down there,’ at birth, period. By that standard, the basic concept of being transsexual is a fantasy or delusion in the mind of the transsexual person, and so by this standard transsexual people are all mentally ill and need to go to “conversion therapy” so that they can start behaving properly, dammit. Some people even propose to kill transsexual people to do them a favor, supposedly to let a deity sort it out.

Whatever the supposed solution to the supposed problem, I have a fundamental problem with that entire idea set, including the notion that a transsexual girl is somehow “really” a male.

A transsexual girl is a girl. Period. The shape of her body ‘down there’ is secondary. One of my favorite R-rated images on this subject is a full frontal nude picture of two ladies, one of them transsexual and the other one not. The caption reads “some girls are born with innies, some with outies.” I think that sums it up well. That terminology is generally used to refer to belly buttons, and it really puts things in perspective to have it used with reference to the ladies’ body parts ‘down there’ too.

So, back to the lady who authors the website and tells t-girls that it’s totally OK to be attracted to men, i.e., to be a faggot, as she phrases it. She means well and is trying to oppose and undo the effects of the many years of shame that most transsexual girls have felt. But, she’s being fundamentally imprecise. A girl, transsexual or otherwise, who is sexually attracted to men is the precise opposite of gay.

To be candid: I understand the t-girl mind-set better than most folks probably do. What I write in this post is a generalization, but in my experience it’s a reasonable generalization.

Early on in the progression of a t-girl, she sees no hope for herself to ever come out and to look or be sexy. Some t-girls who are in that situation then externalize their attention on another girl. The t-girl lavishes on that other girl all the care and attention that she craves for herself but isn’t ready for — and worse: that she doesn’t believe herself to be worthy of receiving. I don’t mean this in a disparaging way but with empathy: self-loathing tends to be part of the t-girl’s early mind-set. It’s undeserved self-loathing, but that doesn’t make it feel emotionally any less painful.

A little less than ten years ago, I involved sexy girls in my social life and sex life. I bought them plane tickets, bought them sexy clothes & BDSM equipment, took them on exotic vacations, dressed them up and showed them off. I enjoyed looking at them, dressed and undressed. I enjoyed their company including intense sexuality, including BDSM, privately and in semi-public dungeons. I ravished them, bought them meals, lent them money, and cared for them. In many cases I helped them to relocate to be closer to me. I helped them find better-paying careers such as in software development.

All this love and energy, I poured into them while neglecting myself. I was personally in financial dire straits and also falling apart health-wise, though I didn’t realize the gravity of either problem at the time.

I felt unworthy to be the recipient of the nice treatment that I was lavishing on the girls in my life. I was nice to them before, during and after the time they spent with me. When they wanted to move on, I encouraged that, too. I’m still friends with many of them.

Today, I realize that the way I was treating these girls was secretly how I wanted to be treated. I wanted to be thought of as pretty and helped to look prettier yet, and to be sexually adored and ravished in my capacity as a girl, and taken to nice places, and be given nice presents. I was struggling and lost, deep down. I wanted to be helped, just as I helped these girls. I wanted someone to take charge and solve my problems, just as I did for these girls.

A typical theme in my choice of girl was that she
a) was lovely
b) needed rescuing
c) was someone in whose life I could make a big difference
d) was sexually intense
e) submissive enough to allow me to take charge and do my lavishing and ravishing.

As it happens, none of them were t-girls but they might have been and it wouldn’t have changed the basic premise.

Now, as I think back at that time-frame, I feel embarrassed that I did this and the reasons why, though I am happy if I added value along the way. And now, finally, today, the energy, time and money that I used to allocate to others, I am now finally and belatedly focusing on myself — including my creditors and my health.

At a superficial level, the best possible treatment I could imagine for myself right now would be to hop into a time machine and go be one of the girls that the “me” of ten years ago was adoring and ravishing.

Frankly, I think the t-girl should primarily be nice to herself. and it’s never too late to start.

For many, most or all t-girls, body hair is a major source of frustration and it makes us feel unfeminine.

Shaving is a short-term fix with unpleasant long-term implications, since the stubble that grows out makes us feel less feminine yet.

Waxing hurts A LOT but this is what I do to get rid of body hair. It’s working. Not just do I look and feel smooth after a session, but the process of ripping out body hair by the root isn’t good for the follicles. Eventually, the hairs that still grow out become softer and lighter, and eventually a follicle might just stop growing hair altogether.

I’m not there yet, but I can see myself making progress. I love that.

I also love the effect it has on how desirable it makes me. I recall sitting across a lounge table from a gentleman on a date, and he suddenly reached out and trailed his fingers over the top of my thigh in a way that made it pretty clear it was something he’d been wanting to do for a long time.

Another time, I was wearing a stripper dress to Walgreens (not a great idea, I know) and a male customer came and stood next to me and slowly touched my shoulder in the same way as the other gentleman had, and he seemed to like what he felt because the first thing he said to me right after that suggested that he would very much like to take me to bed.

So, if you wanna get touched in public by random male strangers, waxing is a good step in that direction.

Waxing is also a good thing to start doing right now with a view to the long term, because if you get boob implants then waxing becomes non-viable for a long time: you can’t very well go ripping out hair in the vicinity of the scar, otherwise you might rip the wounds open and end up with a big emergency room bill. So, the best time to get your body hair to stop growing is before it’s time for your implant surgery. That might also help you feel better about not yet being able to afford boob implant surgery just yet.

For t-girls who are not publicly “out” yet, getting rid of body hair might be a good stealth maneuver that is affordable, safe (if you do it right) and has good short-term and long-term consequences. And, presumably the only people who will see your skin under your clothing are those whom you probably trust with the “I’m a t-girl” news anyway. And even if you tell NObody then your “significant other” might well think that the new, smooth-skinned “you” is an improvement, and that might make you more confident as to the next step, whatever that means for you.

I’ve tried many different types of wax, and for the process from the neck down (yes, even THERE) “Nair Ultimate with Argan Oil” is what I use. For facial waxing I plan to write a separate article.

You can typically get this at CVS or Walgreens for $15 or less. My most recent such purchase was at CVS for less than $12.

When you buy wax, don’t just buy one box: buy two or three. I’ve sometimes bought and then opened a box and saw it’s lacking paper (as in, the factory messed up or, more likely, someone stole it and resealed the box). It’s a good idea to make sure the box you’re about to buy is securely sealed to avoid this sort of problem. Ideally, the wax and paper will both run out at the same time, but in real life that hardly ever happens. so you might be glad you have some extra paper because you bought more than one box of wax.

If you feel geeky, you can go Google the ability for various materials to store heat energy, and you’ll learn that wax pretty trumps EVERYthing. In other words, it takes a lot of energy to heat wax up and then after it’s hot, wax stores a lot of energy. If you put too-hot wax on your skin, it’s not likely to stop burning until you’re at the emergency room with permanently damaged skin or no skin at all.

As you embark on this adventure, keep in mind that of all the many substances on the planet that retain heat energy, you’re about to go heat up the most dangerous one — and then smear the stuff on yourself. And it’s sticky. If it burns, you can’t rinse it off. If all this scares you, good. It should.

This is where a prudent person would read some, most or all of the instructions but most people just muddle through, and they’d rather get a root canal than read the instructions, especially if they were raised in male culture. So, read it or don’t read it, whatever works for you. It’s not my position to lecture you.

To proceed:

First of all, undo the white plastic cap and then remove & discard the little plastic cork at the top of the bottle. If you don’t, wax will overpressurize and it’ll be both dangerous and messy. Put the white top back.

Put the wax bottle onto a large plate with a paper towel above the plate. Then put the bottle, paper and plate in the microwave oven. Ouch, yes, the plate can get very hot.

Be sure to heat the wax up for only half a minute and then give it a minute for the heat to spread, and then test just a tiny bit of it very gingerly with a body part you’re not that fond of anyway (and no, don’t use THAT one). Presume that whatever body part you use might get burned. So, if you’re a software developer, don’t use your fingers. Use your big toe or elbow.

If the wax is even a little too hot, don’t presume it’ll probably cool off when it hits your skin. It won’t.

Gradually heat up the wax more and more until it’s pleasantly warm but not hot — not even a little too hot. If it’s too hot, then patiently wait for a long time for the wax to cool down. Staring at it makes it take longer so instead go find something else to do for the next fifteen minutes and then test the temperature again.

If you time the process and you learn that for your specific type of microwave oven, it takes a minute to warm up the wax, then remember that this time is for a full bottle of wax. If you later go heat up less than an entire bottle, a minute will make it too hot.

Put down paper towels everywhere you’re going to be doing the waxing, e.g. if it’s the bathroom, put it on the toilet, washbasin, sink etc.

Strip naked, and put your hair away in a ski cap or shower cap. Put on disposable gloves. I use Black Dragon gloves that I buy at Autozone. Recruit someone who loves you very much, to help with the areas you can’t reach such as your back.

Using the roll-on mechanism, smear a small amount of warm wax onto your skin, press the paper over it and rip it off. The faster you rip, the better. I can’t emphasize this enough. This is why it’s good to do this yourself for every part of you except where you can’t reach, because someone who loves you enough to help you probably also won’t wanna hurt you. In sympathy, they might pull the paper off too slowly — which makes it hurt a lot more. After they see you do it quickly, they might feel OK with following your example, but be sure to verbalize your concerns ahead of time, and do explain why.

Whenever you rip the paper off, the skin has to be taut. Your private parts and thighs might need an extra hand so as to keep the skin tight enough.

It’s going to be tempting to go over the same areas again and again right away, in case the first time didn’t remove all the hairs. If you want to damage your skin, that’s what you should do. It’s what I do. I tolerate the skin damage because for once I wanna feel smooth, dammit. If I were smarter I’d just treat every square inch of skin once, and then a few day later do it again — not a minute later.

Because wax holds its heat for a long time, you might not need to go re-heat the wax. Or, you might. If the wax is painful to roll on, then I go warm up the wax a little more — just a little, because every trip to the microwave has the potential for making the wax too hot and ending up being burned, literally.

I’m about 5’11 1/2″ with an athletic build, and for me, one bottle has enough wax to do my front from my neck down to above my nether region, and my under-arm area, and my forearms. That’s all. I like being smooth all over, so I need more than one bottle of wax to get the job done, though sometimes I need a break after one bottle and then I use the next bottle another day.

I focus on my underarm area, and my front, because that’s the area around my boobs. Being permanently hairless there is a self-imposed prerequisite for me getting a boob job. I also focus on my forearms because that’s the part of me that I see the most, e.g., as I type on a computer keyboard.

If you’re surprised and emboldened by your ability to tolerate the pain, don’t get too cavalier because as the waxing process approaches your nether regions, your skin becomes a lot more sensitive.

In the beginning, I’d bite down so hard in reaction to the pain that I was afraid I might chip a tooth, so get a piece of wood or something to bite on if the pain is that intense for you.

When you are almost done, don’t presume that any residue will easily wash off. Wax can takes a long time to wash off. So, use the paper to remove any stray pieces of wax and get yourself as wax-free as you can. Then, go take a long, warm-to-hot shower and use soap to wash the areas you waxed.

After a waxing session, I personally wait a few hours before I put on moisturizer. I figure I might clog up my pores otherwise, though I don’t have any evidence for that; it’s a guess but it seems reasonable.

Anyway, I hope you do this better than I do and that you are always safe. I also hope you love the results.

Don’t be surprised if a body waxing session improves your self-confidence, sex life or both.